In our last article on Stephen Hawking facts, we learned about some really interesting facts about the physicist. However, we really didn’t manage to cover all the points. So this supplementary article on random Stephen Hawking facts is designed to provide the missing information that you might find really interesting. So, without further ado, let us begin…

Random Stephen Hawking Facts: 1-5

1. Stephen Hawking is one of 1,000+ experts who signed an open letter in which they urged that AI weapon systems should be banned globally. Other experts include the likes of Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk etc. Source

2. In 2006 Stephen Hawking was invited to Vatican for conference. Pope John Paul was among the audience of Hawking. The Pope was having difficulty understanding Hawking and hence, he knelt down beside the wheel chair of Hawking. This act urged one of the scientists to say “things certainly have changed since Galileo”. Source

3. In 2009 on June 28, Stephen Hawking threw a party. The party was meant for time travelers only. He sent out the invites after the party was over. Hawking waited for long and no one arrived. Source

4. In 2001, a stunning statement was made by Stephen Hawking. He said that if humans are not re-engineered, we may be risking machine rule! Source

5. Elaine Mason – the second wife of Stephen Hawking – was the wife of David Mason – the engineer who designed the speech synthesiser used by Hawking. Source

Random Stephen Hawking Facts: 6-10

6. Stephen Hawking’s son Tim Hawking used to play pranks on his father when he was just a child. He not only added the word ‘Swear’ to Stephen Hawking’s speech synthesiser but also used his wheel chair as ‘go-kart’! Source

7. At Oxford when Hawking was in his final year, he fell down from stairs and went to see the doctor thinking that he was becoming clumsier. The doctor advised him only one thing – ‘lay off the beer’. Source

8. In 1976, Hawking was invited for attending the induction of Prince Charles in the Royal Society. Charles was intrigued by the wheel chair of Hawking. Hawking demonstrated the capabilities of his wheel chair by twirling it around and in the process, ran over the toes of Prince Charles. Hawking however regretted that he didn’t get an opportunity of running over the toes of Margaret Thatcher. Source

9. In 2007, on April 26, Stephen Hawking became the first quadriplegic in world to experience Zero Gravity. He experienced it on a Zero Gravity Corporation flight.

10. US President Barack Obama awarded Stephen Hawking with Presidential Medal of Freedom in year 2009.

Random Stephen Hawking Facts: 11-15

11. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario appointed Stephen Hawking as first Distinguished Research Chair.

12. In 2004, Stephen Hawking reversed his own theory (given in 1966) that black holes swallow up everything in their own path forever. He declared that black holes can never support space travel into other universes.

13. Stephen Hawking was the person who found out that black holes emit radiations. He found it by combining quantum theory with theory of relativity.

15. Hawking strongly believes that time travel is possible with our current understanding but says that there has to be Chronology Protection Law in place to prevent time travelers from traveling back in time and killing their parents. Source

Random Stephen Hawking Facts: 16-20

16. When Hawking was in his teens, he built a computer from recycled parts. Of course, he took help from several of his friends. The computer he built along with his friends was used for solving rudimentary mathematical equations. Source

17. The 1965 doctoral thesis of Stephen Hawking was posted by Cambridge University on its website in October 2017. The demand for the paper was so high that university’s website was overwhelmed by visitors and the server crashed! Source

18. In 2006, Hawking publicly advocated the colonization of other planets by humans. At the same time he also expressed his wish to go into space and joked that billionaire Richard Branson will help him. Guess what? Richard Branson paid for all the expenses for Hawking’s 2007 zero-gravity experience! Source

19. Back in 2006 when Hawking was in Vatican for cosmology conference, Pope John Paul II discouraged him from studying the universe stating that the origin of the universe was God’s work and it shouldn’t be explored. Source

20. When Hawking was in school, his friends gave him the nickname – ‘Einstein’. Source

That completes our list of 20 random Stephen Hawking facts. In case you think we have missed something really interesting, feel free to let us know through the comments section or you can drop us a mail through our contact section.